Fernand Léger, one of the most significant and influential artists of the 20th century.
Fernand Léger was a groundbreaking French artist best known for his striking and dynamic renderings of modern life and machinery, leading some to label him as a forerunner of Pop Art. A key figure in the development of Cubism, Léger also pioneered his own unique take on the movement (which came to be known as ‘tubism’), and he is widely regarded as being one of the 20th century’s most important artists.
Moreover, Léger’s work has remained popular in the seven decades since his death, and his pieces are particularly sought-after in the United Kingdom and the United States. Though he experimented across a wide range of mediums throughout his career, prints dominate Léger’s market, accounting for 55% of his work sold at auction, where they usually reach between £100 and £500, with a significant number fetching up to £5,000.
Below is a list of Fernand Léger’s five most expensive prints sold at auction. If you own a Fernand Léger print and would like to know more about how much it may be worth or how to sell it, get in touch with Mark Littler today.
Free Specialist Print Valuations
Please use the form below to submit images of your print and receive a free, no-obligation valuation from a specialist auctioneer. We will also actively seek the highest offer from our network of private collectors to help you sell your print.
"*" indicates required fields
Le Vase
This 1927 lithograph in colours is consistently among Fernand Léger’s most popular prints sold at auction, with this impression having been sold by Swann Galleries in September 2017 for a hammer price of £20,767.
Like many of Léger’s works, Le Vase makes prominent use of primary colours; according to some sources, the artist originally intended to use only primary colours in the print, and was planning on creating the green and brown shades in the image by overlaying the other tones during the printing process. The method proved too complicated to create the brown, though, and the artist settled on using a premixed shade instead. However, it did work for making the green, and as a result, each impression of Le Vase is slightly different, with some greens proving darker or more vibrant than others.
Le Vase sold by Swan Galleries in 2017
Les Femmes Au Perroquet
Dating from just three years before Léger’s death, this lithograph in colours tripled its top estimate when it was sold by Sotheby’s in October 2022 for £20,704. The print is one of a number of Léger artworks centring around women and parrots, a motif which appeared to fascinate him. These works vary hugely in scale and medium, and they include murals, paintings, lithographs, and sculptural pieces, all of which are distinguished by their sensual, curved lines and bold, flat planes of colour.
Les Femmes Au Perroquet sold by Sotheby’s in 2022
Les Danseuses (Fond Jaune)
Though executed only one year before the artist’s death aged 74, this 1954 print is nevertheless suffused with the sense of freedom and vitality which came to define so much of the work Léger created after his experiences in the trenches during World War I.
The print’s writhing, monochrome mass of bodies is striking against an intense yellow background, reflecting Léger’s interest in the “application of contrasts – pure tones and groupings of form”, as well as his fascination with “carefully studied movement”. The lithograph more than tripled its top estimate when it was sold by Christie’s in September 2017 for £20,000.
Les Danseuses (Fond Jaune) sold by Christie’s in 2017
Cirque
This portfolio of 63 lithographs in colours comes from Fernand Léger’s 1950 artist’s book, Cirque, which remains among his most popular works at auction more than 70 years after its first publication. Léger was fascinated by the spectacle and performance aspects of the circus, calling it “the land of circles in motion”, and his left-wing beliefs meant he also approved of its ability to bring culture, art, and excitement to the general public.
Léger thought the circus represented the human desire “to break through restraints, to spread out, to grow toward freedom… To inhabit upper space means to have wings, an ambition to leap across space in a single bound.” It is therefore no surprise that his obsession with the circus inspired many of his popular works of art, but Cirque probably remains his best-known of these. This particular set of impressions was sold by Christie’s in May 1999 for £19,740.
Cirque sold by Christie’s in 1999
Arthur Rimbaud: Les Illuminations
This portfolio of 15 prints was inspired by a series of prose poems written by the famous French libertine poet, Arthur Rimbaud. Extraordinarily, Rimbaud produced almost all of his work as a late teen and young adult, and he had completely stopped writing poetry by the age of just 21, spending the rest of his life travelling restlessly across different continents. According to his one-time lover, fellow poet Paul Verlaine, the poems of Les Illuminations were written between 1873 and 1875, and the collection is often considered to be Rimbaud’s last major literary work.
Many decades after Rimbaud’s death, Fernand Léger selected 15 of these poems and created illustrations for them. The poems and accompanying images were published in 1949 by Éditions des Gaules, with a preface written by the notorious American novelist, Henry Miller. This complete portfolio of the lithographs was sold by Christie’s in March 2016 for £18,000.
Arthur Rimbaud: Les Illuminations sold by Christie’s in 2016
